


Philophobia

by dannihowell (iguessicantry)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 17:04:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7626760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iguessicantry/pseuds/dannihowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan has a fear of falling in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Philophobia

Age: 5

Little Daniel Howell won a goldfish at his school’s annual spring fair. He fell in love with the little animal. He’d named him George and spoke to him every day when he woke up. Four and a half days later, he died. Little Daniel cried and he blamed himself. His parents told him that everything died eventually. It seemed like a perfect age to learn that life lesson. Daniel never forgot it.

 

Age: 10

 

Dan’s sitting on the field after lunch when a girl named Winnie sits down next to him and announces she likes him. Dan doesn’t respond. He stares out into the open field, pulling out the blades of grass, waiting for her to go away. She kisses him and he bolts out of the school gates. He liked Winnie too but avoided her as much as possible. The kiss was going too far and no one found Dan until six o'clock that night, hiding in a tunnel on the playground. When his mum asked why he ran away, he said, ‘What if she died too?’ She asked what he meant by that. He couldn’t say.

 

Age: 15

 

Dan’s high school is holding a formal dance. He isn’t going because he couldn’t find a date. He’s been avoiding girls since age 10 and now he’s starting to avoid boys too. He doesn’t talk to other people that much and everyone calls him emo because of his fringe and quiet demeanor. The next day, Dan can’t stand to see the pictures of the previous night popping up in his news feed. He wished that he could talk to other people without the fear of getting too attached or even falling in love. He tells his mum that he’s unhappy and she blows it off as teenage angst. Dan sighs and stalks outside to walk around for a while.

He sits down on a park bench by a pond. There’s a boy sitting there as well with a similar fringe and black skinny jeans. They both sit there for hours staring out across the water until the boy says, “I’m going home now. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Dan notices his bright blue eyes and takes a while to answer. He finally says, “Okay.”

Dan returns the next day to find the boy sitting there. “Hey,” he says quietly.

“Hey,” the boy responds. They sit in silence for two hours before Dan gets up to leave.

“Will you be here tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” the boy says.

 

The cycle repeats for about two weeks. Dan meets him in the park and they enjoy the tranquillity together. One day, the boy doesn’t show up and Dan is worried but he returns home with hopes of seeing him again. After three days of no-shows, the boy is there but he has a bruise on his arm and he has a black eye. Dan wants to ask what happened but that’s not how their relationship works. He waits the standard two hours before the boy speaks up. “I’m Phil and my dad is a dickhead.”

Dan laughs a little and nods his head. “I’m Dan and there’s nothing special about me.”

“I bet there is.”

“Maybe,” Dan chuckles. He stops laughing and they’re quiet again, hearing nothing but the ducks and the breeze rustling the green leaves of summer.

“He doesn’t like that I’m gay,” Phil says suddenly.

“Oh,” Dan responds then realizes he should probably say more. “It doesn’t bother me at all.”

“No?”

“No. Impossible,” Dan hints with a cheeky smile. “Very impossible.”

“That’s good,” Phil smiles moving closer to him.

Age: 25

Dan’s been Phil’s boyfriend for eight years now. It took a while for their relationship to become official. Phil had his own problems and Dan… Dan had to overcome himself. The persistent fear of falling in love caused him to break up with Phil five times in a month. Phil noticed Dan’s nervousness, passing it off as an insecurity of being homosexual. One day, he was fed up with it. He turned up at Dan’s house and kissed him as soon as he opened the door. “You are my boyfriend. Got it?”

“Yeah,” Dan mumbled surprised by Phil’s intimacy. That was their first kiss and Dan didn’t see it coming. He hadn’t been kissed since that day on the field.

“Good.”

“B-But, I have to t-tell you something about me,” Dan stuttered. “I’m afraid.”

“Of what? Homophobes? You can–,”

“No. Of you. Of loving you,” Dan interrupted. Phil stood there confused and turned away to leave. Dan’s heart fell but then Phil turned around and told him, “Let’s take it one day at a time. Okay? Let’s not talk about love. Alright?”

“Alright,” Dan sighed with relief. He could just have a friend again. The fear started to leave him, as he got closer to Phil. It faded slowly as Phil drifted into his life at the same tempo, like a leaf across still water. They took everything day by day and Dan was grateful. He didn’t bother attending Uni and neither did Phil. They lived quietly in a small flat in southern England. Dan started making friends through Phil and he was happier now more than ever. They were having a sleepy Sunday, lounging around in the living room, watching movies and eating junk food. They lived in a high rise so when the sun began to set, they rushed to the window to watch. With the pink and orange sky surrounding them, they felt at peace for those few minutes. Phil wrapped his arms around Dan’s middle, hugging him from behind and placed his chin on Dan’s shoulder. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” Dan said. There was no hesitation, no wavering in his voice, no fear. They made love that night, on the floor with the blinds open to the cityscape. Dan breathed in Phil’s everything and Phil made him feel loved. He bit and sucked at the tan skin beneath and Dan lifted his head, bearing his neck in response. Phil entered him, filling him with love and passion causing Dan to chant, “I love you, I love you, I love you so much.” After an hour of hitched breaths and nails digging into skin, they were both spent. They were tired, they were sweaty and they were in love. That didn’t bother Dan in the slightest. In fact, he couldn’t envision another state of being. Phil was his everything. Dan wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Age: 50

They had to take a break from each other. Life had caught up with our lovers in the past 25 years. Phil’s father had died and although they hadn’t spoken to each other in years, it hit him hard. He took to the bottle and Dan had to watch him slowly poison himself. Dan came back to their house to pick up a few dress shirts for work and found Phil sitting alone, drinking at half past 4 in the afternoon. He begged him to stop, told him he was breaking his promises to him and said that “You need to stop. You’re hurting me. I knew I shouldn’t have married you. You don’t love me!”

“Yes, I d-do!” Phil shouted back, the alcohol causing him to lose control of speech.

“You’re always bloody drunk!”

“You don’t understand, do you? He hated me all my life and I never got to…” Phil tapered off as the tears streamed down his face.

“To what?”

“… Get his blessing. I needed it. You don’t know how much I wanted him to love me,” Phil sobbed, tears dropping on to his dirty white t-shirt. Dan knows. He knows everything about Phil and his sensitivity towards the subject of his father. His mother had died when he was young so he was all he had besides a younger brother who had to escape their hell too. His father died alone and angry. Phil took his place in the world as that miserable middle aged man who couldn’t show love or tenderness or affection in the slightest.

“He did love you.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

Phil took to sobbing on Dan’s shoulder when Dan held him in his arms and hugged him tightly. “I miss you, Phil.”

“I miss you too. Come back home. I’ll stop drinking. I can’t live here without you.”

“I can’t live without you either.”

 

Age: 68

 

Phil is dying. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, a disease that’s destroying his brain and memory. He started forgetting things around the house and eventually wandering the streets early in the morning. He had been placed in a nursing home where Dan visits him every day after a half day of work at the library. It’s a simple life now. Someone has to feed him, bathe him and dress him because Phil’s forgotten how to. They’re getting older and Dan has to repeat himself at least 10 times a day when Phil asks, “Did he love me?”

“Yes, Phil. He did,” Dan answers without hesitation or agitation.

“Oh. Do you love me?”

“Yes. That will never change.”

Phil deteriorates quickly and pretty soon he can’t speak anymore. He won’t eat. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t need to. His organs are shutting down. Dan sits by his bedside tonight because he has a gut feeling that this will be the last sunset they see together. Phil reaches out to him and Dan takes his hand. “I love you and I always will,” Dan soothes. Phil’s arm drops down to the bed and he doesn’t open his eyes anymore. It was 3 hours before anyone noticed that he’d died in his sleep whilst Dan held his hand. Phil faded away as slowly as he drifted in. Silent and loving all the same.

Age: 69

Dan’s alone in the world once again. His parents are long gone and his brother’s moved to another country several decades earlier. Phil’s presence still consumes him every day as his smell still lingers about the fabrics and linen in their home. Phil wasn’t buried but cremated and he sits atop the mantelpiece. Dan knows he’s still there both figuratively and literally. It calms him. He still feels his love and that’s what he thinks about a night when he reaches over to hug the empty space next to him. Phil’s picture sits on the nightstand but it doesn’t mock him. It reminds him that he knew love in its purest, most perfect form: without fear and without regret. It was simply unconditional and remains everlasting.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr  
> [dannihowell](https://danni-howell.tumblr.com/)


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